Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Feb 2002 to 26 Feb 2002 (#2002-57) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 27/02/2002, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 5 messages totalling 286 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Bouncing Yahoo groups (2) 2. specialty priests discussion 3. M-Vampire Magic System (2) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 01:06:30 -0800 From: Herve Musseau Subject: Re: Bouncing Yahoo groups Ethan wrote: > On a more operational note: > Has anyone else had a major problem with Yahoo Groups recently? I am on the Mystara 3e group and the DV group, but I haven't received ANY mail from either of them for the past 5 months, even though my mail settings are set to receive mail directly. Since you have unsubbed and resubbed with another email addy I can't check whether your old address had a history of mail bouncing, but I know that it happens. If it bounced I don't know why; reasons may be on yahoo's side (bad DNS or route) or on yours (bad user name or aliasing, quota exceeded), or anything else. There have been mails recently on the DV (and the generic MA) group recently, and given that Jenni recently mentioned update to the M3E site I don't doubt there was discussion going on in the M3E group as well. I suggest you browse the groups' site to catch up on the mails you missed, as the mails are stored there. You may react to them, too, if you think what was dicussed is still relevant and you have something to say about it. ===== ___________________________________________________________ Herve Musseau http://www.geocities.com/hmusseau/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 11:58:07 +0100 From: Knud Gentz Subject: specialty priests discussion Hi all, Note: An excel spreadsheet containing an updated list of recommencations can be downloaded at http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs339 >> > > Alphatia >> >> >Ok. What about giving them two schools, but having them learn spells >> >(only the wizardly spells) as wizards? >> >> You mean from scrolls or a wizardly tutor? or only from scrolls? the >> learned spells would then be cast as if they were priest spells, ie as part >> of the standard spell allowing or would you have them be in addition to >> those? Interesting idea, but might work out. > > >I mean not giving all spells as known (as priest spells are), but having >the priest learn each spell as a wizard would (from tutoring, research, >and spellbooks). So they will learn the spells as wizards do. Once they have learned them, they cast them as priest spells of the same level, ie as part of their normal priest spell allowance. > > >> >> >> Atzanteotl All Astral Charm Combat Elemental (Earth) Healing >> Necromantic >> >> >> immune to alignment detection, only use piercing or inca weapons, >> command >> >> >> undead, cause light wounds 3/d, detect good at will, cast >> >enchantment/charm >> >> >> spells as if they were cleric spells >> >> > >> >> >Quite powerful, IMO. Some armor limits could be in order. >> >> >> >> Hmm, I thought him to be not that powerful compared to other hierarchs. >> > >> >Well, consider that they have a permanently active power and one at will >> >(in addition to the standard command undead), can cast spells from a >> >powerful wizardly school, and have a good, if limited, selection of >> >clerical spells. Also, the weapon is not that limited, as they can use a >> >full class of weapons (percing), plus all inca weapon (which would >> >probably include some bladed and blunt weapons). >> >> I actually counted the weapon allowance as a bonus. And they do have a >> number of powers at hand but these have IMHO no great influence on >> adventuring and I measure the powers ob their usefulness for adventurers >> since pure npc clerics can be as powerful as I like them to be :-) > > >That is certainly good, but I don't think that undetectable alignment >and detect good are useless in adventuring, especially when one is an >evil priest. True, but I still can't see them to be all that powerful, especially when compared to other hierarchs priests. perhaps you could have a look at my calculations in the excel sheet (it won't do to quote the numbers for atzanteotl here, since you will have nothing to compare them with). >> >> >> Noumena All Astral combat Divination Elemental healing Sun >> >> >> detect hidden doors as elf, permanent true seeing, cast wizard >> divination >> >> >> spells as if they were priest spells >> >> > >> >> >Permanent True Seeing seems rather powerful. Note that Noumena would be >> >> >perfect for Thought sphere. >> >> >> >> It is, but he has quite a limited selection of spells despite access to >> >> wizard enchantment spells to make up for it. Add Thought. >> > >> > >> >If you want to widen the spell selection, you could add also Numbers >> >(though this is really one of the more "experimental" spheres). >> >> I find this sphere strange, somewhat hard to bring into play and most of >> the person-affecting spells have no saving throw. I would rather ignore it. >> I like the divine recognition, though. Perhaps add true seeing 1/(5 >> levels*d) (in this case meaning 1 at 5-9, 2 at 10-14 ...) > > >Yes, powers limited in numbers of uses are good. I'd give a smoother >progression, though (something like 1*levels per week). Note that Divine >Recognition has a cost of 15 CPs in Player's Option rules, more than >Turn Undead, for example. I use a different point system from that in the players options (and haven't found divine recognition there anyway) but have assigned a slightly higher point cost than for command undead (while turning undead costs nothing, not being able to do so gives a substantially higher bonus) It does seem, we're coming to an end, finally :-) bye Knud ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 14:49:59 EST From: Alex Benson Subject: Re: M-Vampire Magic System One of my Mystaran projects deals with the implementation of a vampire culture influenced by White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade. In short, these vampires represent the original strain of vampirism. Over the course of time, that original strain of vampirism split into a second group. This spawned group is the vampirism that is most widely known in Mystara. The original strain still exists but has gone underground, hiding itself from humanity and waging a war against the entropic vampires. I had wanted to give these vampires a more unique brand of magic, without taking too much from D&D or WW magic systems. What I settled on was the magic system used for the online RPG Asheron's Call. That system uses mana a to power the spells and spell components to focus the power. For the vampires, the mana would be replaced by the blood pool they carry. Blood use increases as higher level spells are used. Unlike AC's mana, the vampire's spell fuel would not be gradually renewed through rest. Instead, feeding restores used blood. Spell components are removed. Spells vary from D&D offerings. I wanted to avoid making them too similar to the typical D&D spells. As such, I turned to the spells used in AC. Spellcraft is broken into four schools of magic; Creature, Life, Item, and War. Since AC's magic is based on living human casters, some spells have to be altered and added to reflect the undead nature of the vampires. Since spells can boost both primary attributes and secondary attributes, there is a stacking of bonuses. I am going to have to simplify things for balance and ease of use. Creature- Each spell boosts a skill or attribute of the caster or a target; Str, Dex, Int, Wis, Con, and Cha. I would also include other skills such as attacks per round, movement, THAC0, feeding efficiency, blood use efficiency, etc. Item- Each spell offers enhancements to a weapon, armor, or item. Weapon speed can be increased, damage bonuses, parrying bonus, armor can be enhanced in general or against specific types of attack. Like AC I would include portal magic in this school, however that may change as the schools develop. Life- Similar to Creature, but a bit different. There may be alot of spell juggling between these two schools before the final spell inventories are set. General protection against attack types, especially magical attack. Drain attacks; hit points damage, blood drains, attributes points debuffs. Healing type spells will be seen. Life will find its AC spells severely limited in the vampire context. So the portal spells will probably be transferred to Life Magic. War- This school represents the offensive magic. Spells are based on attack type and means of deployments. Types include fire, ice, lightning, acid, slashing, piercing, and blunt. Deployment includes single fire shots of varying intensity, multishot vollies of varying intensity, cone shaped volleys, and circular patterns. There would also be some general powers granted at becoming a vampire or gained through level progression. Blood spells not unique to schools of magic would include various shapeshift spells, gaseous form, cloaking spells, charm powers, and spider climb. I also want to have some uniqueness or specialty to each of the vampire clans. For example, one clan may be more adept at certain schools than another. Or a warrior type clan would focus on the melee powers over the magical. More will be coming in the following days as I begin organizing things some more. I would like to point out though that deception is key to the M-Vamps. Campaign use has them operating in the background. Mankind is their feeding stock, even among the more liberal Clans. If an comabt scenario evolves between a Clan, Nest, or individual and a group of PCs the vampire will be a formidable foe. However, he will not risk losing the deception of the seperate vampire sects. I envision them using normal vampires as scapegoats when necessary. Perhaps faking defeats to withdraw to safety. Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 15:28:47 -0500 From: SteelAngel Subject: Re: Bouncing Yahoo groups On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Herve Musseau wrote: > Since you have unsubbed and resubbed with another email addy I can't check > whether your old address had a history of mail bouncing, but I know that it > happens. If it bounced I don't know why; reasons may be on yahoo's side (bad > DNS or route) or on yours (bad user name or aliasing, quota exceeded), or It was on Yahoo's side, since the forwarding for the address I subscribed which was set correctly. Yahoo didn't seem to like sending mail to that address after about October. It was wierd, and my mails to Yahoo went unheeded. Ethan -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:38:13 +0000 From: Gilles Leblanc Subject: Re: M-Vampire Magic System When I had created my Vampire system for Mystara I at first wanted to do something like you're thinking, but opted for a simpler system which was fine for the use I have of vampires in my own campaign. You can check my stuff here : http://dnd.starflung.com/races.html#vamp But no, Im not doing this email simply to plug my stuff !!! I have a suggestion ! If you have the time and it would not be too much of a stretch, you should make it so that players can play vampires in Mystara using your system. That would be great, sorta WhiteWolf + Fantasy + DnD. Altough I doubt many poeple would do this for a campaign, this could be interesting for a one-night quest or something. I sometime use Orcs of Thar Gaz, or the various Creature Crucible Series to do a 1-2-3 night max stand alone quest to change the pace of a long running campaign. Vampiric players could be great, altough... they could actually be played with any vampiric systems. Anyway Im curious to see what you do and I will give you my input when it is done. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Feb 2002 to 26 Feb 2002 (#2002-57) ***************************************************************